Album Review: The Pigeon Detectives – Broken Glances

I’ve been a Pigeon Detectives fan for a long, long time, but when they debuted ‘Lose Control’ last year, I was rather sceptical about what became to be their most latest album, ‘Broken Glances’. Rather quickly, I discovered that this was completely unfounded once I finally saw the band live and I was much more impressed by the track. The band have an energy that’s admirable live and I have a feeling that my opinion of some of these tracks will change once I’ve seen them live.

Back to the album though… ‘Wolves’ starts off atmospheric, in an almost eerie way before developing into something that’s a lot more stereotypically Pigeon Detectives. They’re a band who, despite having a sound that is very unique to them and that they don’t move too far from, they always manage to make each album (beyond ‘Emergency’) sound very much original. There’s always an experimental side to things in one way or another. Back to the track though, it’s got an almost pop edge to it regarding the vocal delivery, but it lacks power in a sense.

I haven’t listened to ‘Lose Control’ much since hearing it live and I’m actually pleasantly surprised by it. It’s far more upbeat than ‘Wolves’ and much more danceable. If anything, it’s rather contrasting to ‘Wolves’ too and even quite happy-go-lucky with very much confident approach in comparison.

‘Munro’, once again, returns ‘Broken Glances’ to a furthermore mellow, melancholic approach. The track features the album title in the lyric “all those broken glances just for you”. It has a leisurely feel to it, although throughout its six minutes, it doesn’t really go anywhere… But picking up the pace again from here… ‘Enemy Lines’ doesn’t really get going, but then it erupts by the chorus which is dynamic and quite literally jumps out at you in comparison. The track is heavier in places, especially towards the end where the track literally explodes into a combination of noise rock and chaos.

Probably a highlight of the album so far, but ‘Sounding The Arm’ is rather catchy, with a sharp, punchy drum beat and sparkling, rolling synths which are replaced with pulsating synths by the first chorus. The track moves from being more electronic to something heavier, but it feels a bit choked.

‘Falling In Love’ starts of as a piano ballad before occasionally being joined by a reverb soaked guitar. At first, it doesn’t feel like this track actually fits the album, but then on further listens, it then becomes clear that it splits the album in two in a way. It’s delicate, but I couldn’t ever imagine it being played live. ‘Falling In Love’ makes heavy use of echo, reverb and it’s airy throughout. I could probably fall asleep rather than fall in love with this track as it becomes rather repetitive!

By the end of ‘A Little Bit Alone’ I feel like the vocal delivery is overly reminiscent of Eagulls! But then ‘Stay With Me’ quickly returns the album to form. It’s catchy, but I really don’t like the production on the track which partially drowns out any layers and if anything makes it sound rather confusing. Overall though, it’s the best track off of the album so far. But then moving on to ‘Change My World’, it’s a charming end to the album to say the least.

‘Broken Glances’ is fairly hit-or-miss throughout and isn’t as strong as I hoped it would be in comparison to previous efforts. Standing on its own though, for 2017 and as 5th albums go, it’s a solid, indie-rock record from a band who have proved themselves to be persistent as well as consistent in their output over the years.